Terrified Manhattan diners caught up in a brazen robbery spoke out as fears grow that the trend of holding diners up at gunpoint outside of restaurants that started in LA has spread to the Big Apple
New York City diners described the terrifying moment two masked, armed men attacked outdoor diners at high-end Manhattan restaurant Phillipe Chow on Wednesday, stealing one man's Rolex watch and shooting another man in the leg when he tried take the robber's weapon.
Halley Wolowiec and Tamara Behan were eating outside at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Phillipe Chow.
Sometime after 10pm Wolowiec told ABC 7 she heard gunshots and glasses and plates breaking. 'There was no mistaking that,' she recounted. When she looked up she saw everyone running. She said that the restaurant opened its doors and ushered people inside to safety.
'It was frightening because it was 20 feet away from us and it got very real very quickly,' Wolowiec explained.
Behan pointed to how quickly her dinner on the Upper East Side turned into her life being threatened. 'It's absolutely scary when you think about how quickly it goes from being a nice night to literally you’re saying could I get shot?'
Police said a 28-year-old male victim was sitting outside the swanky establishment on East 60th Street when one of the men stepped up to his table minutes after 10 pm
A 31-year-old man was also approached at the restaurant at the same time when a masked man robbed him of his Rolex Stainless Steel Submariner watch
Police arrived on the scene late Wednesday night to recover the gun and watch surveillance footage of the armed robbery
Halley Wolowiec (left) and Tamara Behan (right) were eating outside at Le Bilboquet, across the street from Phillipe Chow when the armed robbery occurred
She remembered looking at Wolowiec and thinking, ‘Good God that could have gone into either one of us.’
The born and bred New Yorker was shaken up. 'You always hear about this stuff but you never think about it happening right behind you,' she said.
A hostess at the upscale Chinese restaurant witnessed the altercation, 'It was public in front of everybody.' One of the masked men reportedly approached a 28-year-old man and demanded his watch. 'When he said no, they just pulled out the gun. It's absolutely terrifying,' she told The New York Post.
A woman dining at Il Mulino next door described the chaos to Post. 'There were two shots. Everybody came running in, screaming,' she said.
'It's hard to believe it was a robbery. They were eating dinner out front. It looked like they were targeted. It's crazy.'
Wednesday night's shooting appears very similar to two other recent New York City robberies where diners leaving high-end restaurants were robbed of millions of dollars worth of jewelry.
Both times the victims were approached by two men who escaped in a black Mercedes-Benz.
On Wednesday night, a 28-year-old male victim was sitting outside on a first date at the swanky establishment on East 60th Street when one of the masked men stepped up to his table, according to police.
Meanwhile, a second masked man approached another table and robbed 31-year-old diner of his Rolex Stainless Steel Submariner watch.
'(The robber) said, 'Hey, it's a stickup.' They wanted our jewelry,' the victim's date told the Daily News. 'My date started to fight him for the gun. He shot him. It was the left leg. It was our first date. I'm still in shock'
'There was shooting, and everybody screamed,' a maintenance worker told the New York Post. 'They ran and got scared and threw the gun on the floor, over there near the bottle on the sidewalk'
NYPD Lieutenant Lieutenant Thomas Antonetti told MailOnline that, after the 28-year-old was shot and his assailant relinquished the handgun, the victim managed to bring it inside the restaurant where it was recovered by police
'(The robber) said, 'Hey, it's a stickup.' They wanted our jewelry,' the victim's date told the Daily News. 'My date started to fight him for the gun. He shot him. It was the left leg. It was our first date. I'm still in shock.'
The 28-year-old refused the masked robber's demand for his watch
